Lost in translation as city council election court battle continues
Former Adelaide City councillor Alexander Hyde is fighting in court to have the 2022 council election declared void using recently discovered evidence, but some documents still need to be translated.
Alex Hyde in the Adelaide City Council chamber in 2020. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily
In a directions hearing for the case between Hyde and the Electoral Commissioner of SA and Central Ward councillor Jing Li yesterday, Simon Ower KC, representing Hyde, said there could be “1500 folios of material” they intend to present to the courts with an amended petition to reopen the case.
This includes email correspondence and documents between council staff and Central Ward councillor Jing Li between May and November 2022.
The City of Adelaide was subpoenaed for the documents in April this year as Hyde’s legal team alleged emails showed Li facilitated the voting of about 593 non-citizen residents in the 2022 council election.
WeChat messages were also produced and translated from Mandarin in May, as part of Hyde’s legal team’s push for previously unsubmitted evidence to be formally discovered.
Ower said Hyde’s team was not seeking any further documents and consider its information gathering to be complete.
Judge Michael Burnett has given until Tuesday, July 23 to submit an amended petition to reopen the case, which includes submitting documents that Hyde’s team plan to rely on.
Todd Golding KC, representing the Electoral Commissioner, requested that to argue to reopen the case, all documents should be identified and translated.
Golding said it was his understanding that some documents Hyde’s team would rely on were “almost all exclusively in Mandarin”.
“They’re not going to be much use to me in Mandarin,” Judge Burnett said.
Ower said Hyde’s team were “in the process of obtaining translations of those documents that remain untranslated” and hoped to have those provided by the deadline.
Barrister Helen Luu, representing Li, said she wanted to avoid a situation where documents were filed and relied on by Hyde’s team but further translations were being produced after the deadline, potentially pushing the hearing date further.
Judge Burnett said Hyde’s legal team would have the liberty to notify the court for an extension if there are translation issues.
A further hearing is scheduled for August 1.
